Light Over Fear (For My Son)

I hadn’t planned to write this blog. I had a whole different subject ready for today. But Sunday, in the midst of a bad headache, a poem told me to write it, and “it” was now the subject of my new blog post, it told me. And it’s all because last year, after the Trayvon Martin incident and George Zimmerman was not convicted for murdering Trayvon, blogger Shannyn Marie of the Melanin Diaries asked me to write a guest blog about fear. Because I have a son, who was 22-years old at the time, and there was a growing sense of fear for our boys’ lives.

And… I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to write about fear; didn’t want fear to be my response in relation to my son, and all sons. I try not to operate in fear. I couldn’t find an alternate way to address the issue without… focusing on fear, so I didn’t write about it.

Then Michael Brown was murdered by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. And my eyes are being inundated with stories and images of violence against Black bodies at the hands of police, and at the hands of others.

There’s another reason for this subject today. My son and I recently had a serious conversation about the violence and the unrest in communities over it. He told me, sometimes he fears for his own life – something I’d wondered about, but was reluctant to ask. He said sometimes he fears for his life just living here in Detroit, Mich. and as he travels around the world. The fear? It’s real.

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Prayers go up everyday for the safety and well being of this young man. Families should not have to have discussions on the potential for loss of life just because a young man is trying to exercise his right to navigate the planet.